Ted Belman. Remember, Barnea and YNET are enemies of Netanyahu. Read Bennett: ‘Next disengagement is already here’ He said “The document published this morning is real. The facts are correct.”
Analysis: An Israeli and a Palestinian, each sent by their respective leaders, held years of secret talks summarized in an August 2013 document showing far-reaching Israeli concessions; but while Netanyahu dispatched his most trusted aide, Abbas was playing a different game. Netanyahu’s mistake was trusting Abbas
By Nachum Barnea, YNET
In August 2013, a document was written, summarizing years of secret negotiations held in London between the trusted representative of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and someone who Netanyahu believed was the trusted representative of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It was a document of historic importance.
Netanyahu had dispatched his senior aide, lawyer Yitzhak Molcho, to meet with Abbas’ affiliate Hussein Agha.
Agha, an Oxford professor born in Lebanon, joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization as a youth and is considered one of Abbas’ closes affiliates, while Molcho went on to serve as Israel’s leading peace negotiator – alongside Tzipi Livni – during the last round of US-brokered peace talks.
The document shows that Netanyahu had offered what appeared to be drastic concessions to the Palestinian leadership on a number of core issues, including land swaps, a potential deal regarding Jerusalem and even a limited right of return for Palestinians.
Among these concessions, the document includes what seems to be an opening for an Israeli return to the 1967 Green Line borders – a longstanding Palestinian demand that Netanyahu has rejected on numerous occasions as a precondition for a peace deal – on the basis of a “mile-for-mile” exchange ratio.
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Netanyahu’s secret peace offer concessions to Palestinians revealed
It reveals that not only was Netanyahu willing to trade land with the Palestinians, but was also amenable to offering them full restitution for lands seized by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.
As part of a proposed land swap, the document lays out the framework for uprooting a large number of West Bank settlements and even stipulated leaving some settlers in the West Bank under Palestinian Authority control.
Regarding Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital and has been a non-negotiable point for Israel, the document’s wording is more careful, but not devoid of significance, offering an implicit recognition of the Palestinian claim over East Jerusalem.
The document also shows the Palestinians were offered a permanent foothold in the Jordan Valley, an area which Israel was reluctant to concede control over during the previous round of peace talks. That last round of negotiations almost fell apart after a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party spearheaded a bill that would annex the territory to Israel, effectively taking it off the table.
Furthermore, there was surprising Israeli leeway regarding the much-debated Palestinian right of return for those displaced on the eve of Israel’s formation in 1948. According to the document, Israel offered Palestinian “refugees” the right of return on a personal – as opposed to national – basis.
The article relating to Jerusalem was vaguely worded and appended with a warning: “Any solution must address the historical, social, cultural and effectual ties of both peoples to the city and offer protection to the holy sites.”
But were the talks – and the understandings they produced – really all they seemed?
From one aspect, the choice to use Molcho and Agha was a stroke of brilliance. Both are articulate, broad-minded and pragmatic men – men who are capable of reaching an agreement.
Yet from a different and far more significant perspective, the choice was a miserable one. Molcho says what Netanyahu says; they can’t be separated. All the players in the arena know that Netanyahu keeps a close eye on his people. In contrast, Agha is his own man. Netanyahu believed that Agha was Abbas’ Molcho. He was wrong. When it came to the crunch, Abbas claimed he had no hand in the agreements Agha reached; nothing was reported to him and nothing won his stamp of approval.
Abbas, in fact, used Agha as bait. He drew Netanyahu into making concessions without committing to concessions of his own. Abbas is a master when it comes to this game of poker.
From the perspective of the Israeli center-left – parties such as the Zionist Union and Yesh Atid, and Meretz too perhaps – the agreement is a very reasonable one. The Likud and Bayit Yehudi voters aren’t likely to see it as such.
One should recall that the talks took place during Netanyahu’s previous term in office, before the Kerry initiative, under a coalition government in which Netanyahu was the sole authority with regards to the Palestinian issue.
The concessions he agreed to on substantial issues such as borders, refugees and settlements appear to indicate a fierce and far-reaching desire to reach an agreement that would end the conflict. At the same time, Netanyahu implemented measures on the ground that appeared to indicate otherwise. Apparently, he wanted to be seen as a man eager for peace, but on one condition – that he never actually achieved that peace.
For the most part – a zigzag. His pendulum swings back and forth in a frenzy – from far-reaching concessions, in terms of his voters, to no concessions at all; from right to left, and then right again. There’s no purpose to it, but there’s movement at least.
There is a vast and irreconcilable divide between Netanyahu’s hawkish speeches and the instructions he conveyed to his representative in the talks. Was Netanyahu seeking to pull one over on the Palestinians? Was he, in contrast, looking to pull one over on his voters? Was he trying to dance at two weddings with one rear end? All of the above appear correct. The pirouette was delightful; the choreography stunning. And when the curtain came down on the drama, it turned out that Netanyahu was only fooling himself.
@ Eric R.:v Israel Hayom (Israel Today) is not in the hand of the leftists and is zionist. It is the most widely distributed paper in Israel.
Artuz Sheva (israelnationalnews) is an online nationalist/zionist paper
I have checked the document in question and is indeed one of many “proposals” circulated under and over the table.
Netanyahu officially has not agreed to the terms included.
@ woolymammoth:
Netanyahu is one of the less trustworthy items in politics here. He routinely lies, deceives, betrays, abandons and attacks Jews and Heritage, yet he must be elected and kept under strict control there for two years. On hint of going with Livni and Hertzog or Lapid again and the people must pitch him earlier.
In the connection with Hussein Obama he us useful but we must not rely on him to actually do a thing to stop Iran.
He has failed for a long time and will not change.
It is dreadful setting when that is the best we can hope for,
@ bernard ross: Well, I have learned to qualify statements of support for Netanyahu up to and including expressing the hope that he retires as soon as Obama is out. To me, Netanyahu’s greatest a achievement may be his willingness fist fight it out with Obama, not that he has not made concessions which were cowardly and an error. So that is the proof I offer, if
Netanyahu was a leftist, in fact, Obama would have given him much much more leeway and would have pretended To try earnestly to appear as though he was trying to resolve the differences in the Iran thing quietly, if possible. There is no sign of that effort by the administration, on the contrary,,,no, Netanyahu covered his butt, all well in the negotiations. he knew that Abbas could never sign because the document would become The Mazen Death Warrant.
Bibi is The Obamagator and must be returned to see Obama off, for good hopefully.
Ted, you may not remember but a couple of years ago at about this same time of the year I posted from a pal news source what appears to be this same deal. It came out out at the time when discussion was going on about a pal confederation with Jordan. At the time it was envisioned that after becoming a state the pals would confederate with Jordan out of economic necessity. i t was also envisioned that in so doing the pal israel agreements would fall under the Jordan Israel treaty and Jordan would finalize the negotiations. Thus likely enabling PA negotiators to escape the death penalty. I am sorry that I never saved that article which spelled out a number of details and has been popping back up like trial balloons every year. the details I remember is a 10 year phased withdrawal with the Jordan valley being at the end. The settlements not included would be given the option to stay under pal or jordan control, therefore technically they could be said to not be forcibly removed. In fact I believe that all the plans in this agreement technically adhere to BB’s promises. I think that dual citizenship was an option for those settlers. there would be the swaps. I think that jerusalem was slated to run under one admin(undivided) with 2 sovereignties and dual citizenship or residency would be offered to residents. there was also a question of the pal jerusalem claims being incorporated into the Jordan current sovereignty’s such as the wakf and Mount. It is not hard to envision that an area with like that expanded could solve plans for a pal capitol. Jordan and arabs have been buying up land, possibly that wold be included in an area with embassy like sovereignty. My memory on Jerusalem deal is hazy but there were concessions.
There are a lot of observations which reinforce such a plan being advanced by BB: his appointment of Livni for negotiations and justice to protect the emergence of the future plan. Steps taken in YS such as Rawabi and the Jericho developments could be made with an eye to future agreements. The fact that BB appears to zig zag could be based on the fact that Israel is not politically ready but a unity gov could change that idea. A second reason for delay might have to do with all the understandings with the GCC. Since POD Gaza at the least it appears to me that BB’s decisions are taking those understandings into account. The GCC leashes hamas and weakens hezbullah, Abbas and BB enter into faux talks which take attention off the Israel pal issue and allows the GCC to move forward recruiting jihadis against Iran and the shias, the faux pal state allows the pals to feel something is moving forward, Egypt the proxy of the GCC works cooperatively with Israel to defuse hamas and elevate abbas. My understanding is that the pal elite are heavily invested with Israelis. Even now, will the PA actually end security coordination or is it a drama to make busy.
More things point toward a BB pal agreement in conjunction with the arab league and GCC, like this described, than do not. There is nothing that BB has done, in fact, that disagrees with this agreement points. If you take away the fluff BB has done nothing to advance land for Israel. The whole thing looks like a put on drama for the last few years. there is appearance of arguments and conflict with Abbas, with the usual rhetoric, but in actuality it is only show. Even the current pal boycott will probably end with most pals repudiating it thus removing it from the table. I doubt that Abbas wants a final agreement right now than BB does, I think they both prefer the status quo with small individual steps and no fanfare.
The best explanation for everything BB has done reflects understandings with the gulf and therefore the agreement makes sense. If this agreement is true it would mean that obama knows and if true it would also mean that the BB obama fight may be another show to raise BB’s right wing credentials so he can get more right wing votes which would enable him to make a deal from the right, like nixon china. Obamas quarrel with Sisi helped Sisi get elected and the gulf replaced the money.
If BB gets elected as a right wing leader then those in the middle and right would be more accepting of a deal coming from the right than the left. Its the common strategy since nixon. The emergence of this agreement before the election enables more centrist votes for BB and less zionist votes but if elected he will be viewed as the right wing leader.
My problem with BB is that I see nothing in his record which puts him on the right any more than herzog, barak,etc except perhaps economically.
Can anyone tell me any past actions, not words, of BB that put him on the side of land for Israel?
It is high time to level the playing field with the renegade scum. Herzog is a criminal who took the 5th cover to prevent being indicted on secret money transfers for Barak. Livni has defrauded her former associates in the various “parties” that one set up for short periods of time.
The various arms of the renegade cadre are up to their necks supporting and earning from the enemy.
The people must elect directly new courts and nail that filth down.
Yidiot Achranot (Hebrew version) and its English on-line site Ynet are functioning for all practical purposes as the dirty-politics arm of Labor/Livni/ZU. No trick, or lie or re-writting matters to them. All they care about is bringing down Bibi and the Likud.
It is easier to see when they stretch the truth or outright lie than trying to figure out if they ever tell the truth!
“Remember, Barnea and YNET are enemies of Netanyahu”
Is there any prominent Israeli newspaper or television network that ISN’T an enemy of Likud?